A Senator’s Diary

The Ol’ Duff did not anticipate this. No, sir, did not see this one coming at all. Turns out it’s even more painful sitting here listening to Bayne defend me than it is listening to the Crown attack me.

Three days in, the Ol’ Duff realizes he can handle the monstrous slanders and trumped-up charges cobbled together by the State— it’s the excuses he can’t stand.

“Oh, poor Ol’ Duff, not his fault—just fell off the potato truck, just a raw rookie in Ottawa, just a rube from the Island, who couldn’t possibly understand a set of rules so vague, so wishy-washy, so confusing he couldn’t even figure out where he lived.”

That’s what’s so galling, that’s what’s so insulting about all this—the pretence that the wily Ol’ Duff didn’t know exactly where the weak spots were.

You’re talking to a man who remembers clear as day the electricity he felt through his entire body when he submitted his first expense account. CFCY, Charlottetown, 1961—the Young Duff was just 15 years old, but already a budding media personality, co-host of a TV dance party.

One night, there was a snowstorm and we couldn’t get home, and the manager said he’d reimburse us for a couple of snacks of our choice from the vending machine to tide us over. So I had a couple of Oh Henry! bars and a couple of bags of Humpty Dumptys. But I also managed to charge them for a roll of Rolos and refill for my Pez dispenser, which weren’t even in the vending machine!